A monster most every weekday. Three adventure seeds a post.
Because Pathfinder and 3.5 are more fun than work.
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Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Phantom Armor

Ah, the demands of game balance.Clearly off-screen there must be rites,
rituals, and incantations that, while they take longer to cast or are more
expensive than create undead, allow
NPC spellcasters of lower level to create undead servitors.Because there’s no way a 12th-level wizard is
wasting a 6th-level spell slot to create a CR 2 undead creature.

That said, phantom armors are both classic and cool, perfect
for adding a little Gothic horror—or at least Scooby-Doo horror—to your low-level sessions.

Speaking of which, the kind of animate armor PCs find
themselves facing might be a good indicator of their final nemesis.If they’re fighting armor animated with animate objects, maybe they’re up
against a perfectly reasonable dude who’s just really into home security.(You don’t ever waltz into a transmuter’s office and not expect some nasty surprises,
even if he’s of good alignment.)But
phantom armor?Someone had to be evil to
cast that create undead—feel free to
smite.

The dread wight Avax
does not have to content himself with a lowly barrow.Instead he roams an entire keep and
constantly plots ways to move the milestones that demarcate his land—and thus,
how far his dead body may travel.He is
aided by giant phantom armors whose origin he can only guess at, as they do not
match the proportions of any known giant species.

A suit of phantom
armor from another land might wield a katana, bardiche, boar spear, urumi,
or any other exotic weapon.The phantom
armors that guard the Imperial Museum do not feature the steel breastplates of
their northern counterparts, but they do
sport iron claws meant to invoke the spirit of the leopard (which haste the undead for three rounds a day).

Trapped by a coven of
teachers on campus over the holiday break, a group of young alchemists and
mages must try to escape school grounds and its many watchmen, including the
guardian phantom armors that police the halls.Meanwhile, in the dreamscape where they battle each night, their dream
selves face the coven’s nightmare constructs, including eidolons, giants, and
giant phantom armors…not to mention the native fey, will-o’wisps, and dragons.

By the way, please forgive the occasional typos. I am aware of them, but disagreements between MS Word and the Blogger template make my entries nearly impossible to edit once posted. I blame gremlins. You can find a more polished version of this blog over on Tumblr.